Page 16 of Crime Lab Cold Case (Pacific Northwest Forensics #2)

He sat on the edge of the desk and quirked his eyebrows up and down. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“Other people in the office might notice and resent it.” She shoved back from the desk and massaged her neck.

“Why would they? I think they’d be happy that we’re getting along because it means the lab audit is going well, and nobody is going to get blamed or lose their jobs.

It’s not like a competition where you’re going to investigate one area and not another.

I’m the head of the lab, and if I go up in flames, they all go up in flames. That’s my take.”

“My take is that I don’t want it to appear I’m schmoozing with the boss while investigating the lab.”

“Schmoozing. Is that what we’re doing? I kinda like the sound of that.” He smacked the desk. “I’m going to order out and join you in here for a working lunch. Is that a good compromise? Then you can tell me all about your midnight visitor.”

“Knock yourself out. It’s your lab.”

“I’ll be back with my lunch in about thirty minutes.”

“I’ll be here.”

When Michael left the office, Natalie pulled her access card out of her laptop and shoved it into the plastic holder hanging from the lanyard around her neck. She hadn’t told Michael about the missing files, either, or the other case that had caught her eye.

If she told him about the files, she’d have to admit that she believed someone in his office was trying to sabotage her work. She’d have to confess that she’d even thought he’d done it.

Sighing, she stood up, grabbing the paper plate and coffee cup from this morning. The spasm in her back had her clenching her teeth. Time for more painkillers.

She returned to the lunchroom, washed out her coffee mug and put it on the sink to dry.

Only two cookies remained from this morning, and she eyed them as she retrieved her lunch from the fridge.

As she heated her foot in the microwave, she got a couple of Diet Cokes from the vending machine in case Michael forgot to order a drink with his lunch.

The microwave beeped, and she gingerly removed the plastic container with her fingertips. She threw another glance at the cookies and said, “Ah, hell.”

She’d given her second cookie to Jacob, so this was just a replacement. She dropped one cookie on top of the plastic lid and hauled everything back to the conference room. She tucked the drinks under one arm, as she wrangled the key out of her pocket and into the door lock.

She didn’t want to start eating without Michael, and her food needed to cool off, anyway, so she logged back in to her computer and brought up the ghost database on Katie’s case.

There had been a cigarette butt found on Devil’s Edge Trail the morning after Katie’s disappearance, but no DNA on it. How could DNA be missing from a cigarette butt? There were also a few cigarette butts near Sierra’s abandoned car—again, no DNA detected.

Odd. Usually, crime-scene investigators salivated when they found something like a cigarette butt near a body or crime scene. Even if the DNA didn’t yield a match in CODIS, they still had someone’s DNA.

She threaded a pen through her fingers and dropped it when Michael showed up at her door with a bag of food and two drinks in cups.

He held up the cups. “Didn’t know if you had anything to drink.”

She bent over to pick up the pen and tapped it against the two cans of soda. “Great minds think alike.”

“Ah, but I got you the Zesty Blood Orange Diet Coke this time.” He shoved the drink toward her. “If you can handle it today.”

“I don’t know. Indian food and Zesty Blood Orange Diet Coke.” She popped the lid from her plastic container. “Sounds disgusting.”

He inhaled through his nose. “That smells good. Beats my turkey on rye.”

She stirred through the chicken and rice in her dish. “Nicole packed a lot in here. I’m happy to share.”

“I’m good with my sandwich.” He walked his swivel chair backward toward the door and closed it. “Can we talk and eat?”

“I think I can manage.” She spread a piece of paper towel on her lap and got to it. “After you left last night, I mean right after, Katie’s old boyfriend, Zane Tolbert, knocked on my hotel door.”

Unfolding the waxy yellow paper from his sandwich, he asked, “She had a boyfriend?”

“Beginning stages.” She waved her fork in the air. “Anyway, he recognized me at the Thai restaurant yesterday. I was afraid someone might see that little emo girl beneath the facade. Honestly, I’m still that little emo girl, so it’s no surprise he ID’d me.”

“He followed you to your hotel? That’s not good.”

“Zane didn’t really go into how he found me at the hotel. It could’ve been word of mouth, local gossip.” She poked at a piece of chicken. “Rumor has it that I may even be here looking into you.”

Michael dropped his sandwich. “You’re kidding. Jeez, people still think I did it.”

“I set him straight on that, but I did admit that I might be doing a little investigating of my own into Katie’s disappearance, and that’s when he dropped his bombshell.”

“He killed her.” Michael took a big bite of his sandwich.

“No, but he thinks the cops might’ve had something to do with her disappearance or at least the cover-up. He said that Deputy Max Reynolds was inappropriately interested in Katie at the time, and Katie noticed. She complained to Zane about it.”

“Did she ever mention it to you?”

“No. Zane said she was afraid to tell me because she thought I’d march up to Reynolds and make a scene.” Her lips quivered at the corners, halfway between a smile and a grimace.

Michael walked his fingers to hers and brushed her skin, so subtle nobody would’ve noticed even if they were sitting at the table with them. His touch caused a little shiver to ripple across her flesh.

“I can look into Reynolds. I have a lot of connections at the sheriff’s department, which pretty much saved me from going crazy when I was suspect numero uno over there.”

“That would be great—as long as you’re low-key.”

He turned his thumbs toward his chest. “I’m the epitome of low-key.”

Toying with the straw in her cup, she said, “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

He held up his sandwich. “Should I take this bite, or am I gonna choke on it?”

“Oh, take the bite. It’s not that shocking.” She took a sip of her Diet Coke,. “I had a file with Katie’s case and another one with a possibly related case…and somebody stole them from this office during the fire drill the other day.”

Michael swallowed his bite of sandwich and then thumped his chest with his fist. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.” She shoved away the soda and cracked open the can of the other one. “That’s why I was acting all unhinged about the fire drill. I think somebody set that off on purpose to get into my office and look around. They found the files and took them.”

“I don’t know why you just didn’t tell me that in the first place.” He studied her face and then slowly brushed the crumbs from his fingers. “Oh. You suspected me.”

“Maybe for a brief moment.” She held out her thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot—accusing your staff—and I’m not exactly supposed to have those files, anyway.”

“I could be someone just wanted to sabotage your work, not necessarily that those files meant anything to them.”

“Just? Isn’t it bad enough that someone wants to sabotage my work? And why would they want to do that?”

“You know why. We’ve been through this already. Some people in the lab are annoyed that the FBI wants to interfere in our work.”

“If the work is sloppy…” She spread her hands. “Besides, these are cold cases. We’re not auditing anything recent.”

“We have some old-time employees at this lab. Dr. Volosin, Lou Gray, Nicole was an intern and Felicia’s been here longer than any of them, I think.

” He held up his hand and ticked off a finger with each name.

“Some see it as an affront to their professionalism. You’re FBI.

You must’ve run into this dozens of times with dozens of departments. ”

“True, but nobody ever stole a file from me before, and these are files I shouldn’t have in the first place. Kind of hard to report the theft.”

“What’s the second case? You said you took two files, Katie’s and who else’s?”

“Another abduction from a trail—Alma Nguyen. Even though the cops found Alma’s body, the circumstances mimicked Katie’s case, so it caught my eye.” She glanced at the time on her laptop. “I need to wrap it up. I’m supposed to meet with Rachelle in the DNA lab this afternoon.”

“Rachelle?” Michael crumpled the sandwich paper in a ball and flicked it into the plastic bag. “She went home sick.”

“That’s too bad. I guess I have some free time.”

Her cell phone rang, and she glanced at the display. “It’s the rental-car company. I hope they’re not calling for more information. I told them everything I remembered.”

She tapped her phone to answer. “Hello?”

“Natalie, this is Axis Rental Car Company. Do you have a minute?”

She rolled her eyes at Michael, who was busy cleaning up the trash from their lunch. “Sure. What do you need?”

“We had our mechanics do a preliminary examination of the car today. It’s a good thing it didn’t burn up or explode.”

“That’s for sure.”

The woman on the phone cleared her throat. “But we do have a problem.”

“A problem?”

“We won’t be taking responsibility for the failure of the brakes, Natalie.”

“User error? I swear I didn’t stomp on them or lock them up. They just stopped working.”

“N-not user error.”

Natalie waited, but the pause grew uncomfortably long. “Well, that’s good. What was it, then?”

“Both brake lines were cut, Natalie. Someone tampered with those brakes—on purpose.”